INDIAN MUSIC.

A great part of the effect of Indian vocal music de-
pends on the peculiar manner and the skill with which the
.singer dwells on certain notes, which are varied or trilled,
—" vibrating like a bird above the water before it pounces
upon its prey "—but not to the extent of a semitone above
or below the main note. The same effect (gamakam) is
produced in stringed instruments by varying the tension
•of the string by deflection.

Such effects, so intimately dependent, in the degree
and manner of their expression, upon the musician's,
individual mood and powers, cannot be written down,
and so it is that an Indian air, set down upon the staff
•and picked out note by note on a piano or harmonium*,
becomes the most thin and jejune sort of music that can
be imagined, and many have abandoned in despair all such
attempts at record. The music is, moreover, so personal,
•and so capable of variation according to the singer's mood
that no record can quite adequately interpret it. The
same singer may vary his own rendering from verse to
verse, and improvise upon the main theme according to his
mood or enviromnent.t It must therefore be understood
-that the examples given are merely suggestive illustrations*
4md do not make possible an accurate reproduction of the
•originals. The only way to adequately study Indian
music, is, at first hand, by patient discipleship, a practical

* Cheap harmoniums are now everywhere common in India.

•]• Cf: " To avoid misunderstanding, ife must be pointed out that
by a l true record of a song ' must not be understood one given
variation of it, something fixed once for all. The accuracy or
correctness of a record applies to most widely-differing variations
of one and the same song,and the greater the number of variations,
the richer the material for comparative study, the easier it is to
find out the most artistic specimen. A comprehensive collection
of songs should contain different movements in the development
of the same song, both as regards locality and time," E,
•* The Peasant Songs of Russia,* p. 14.